Hello everyone and welcome along to another fabulous week on the blog, how was your weekend? Mine was good, a mixture of work, meeting up with friends and a visit to see Thomas the Tank Engine….Rock and Roll! Todays wedding see’s us head across to France for this beautiful Boho Chic Outdoor French Wedding. held in the height of summer, Virginie and Xavier chose this stunning spot for their celebrations and the results are a beautifully chilled out, sun drenched day filled with amazing decor and beautiful boho touches. My favourite part of the day has to be Virginie’s beautiful backless gown, she looks absolutely stunning in it! Big thanks to Camille Marciano for the fab images.

An enchanted break. A moment of sharing full of love and emotions.

Virginie and Xavier were married on the 30th of July 2016 at Comptoir Saint Hilaire, France. ‘It waslove at the first sight. When we first talked to our wedding planner about the kind of place we had in mind, for our wedding, they suggested the COMPTOIR SAINT HILAIRE right away since It’s only an hour away from where we live. Once we got there, It just became obvious that this was it. The property is gorgeous. It’s an high-end bed and breakfast with a lot of charm, including stones, a unique sense of design and incredible bedrooms that would accommodate about forty guests. As for the civil ceremony that took place the day before, we really wanted our cocktail party to take place by the sea since we only live a few minutes away from it. Thus we started looking for the THE right beach hut. We found it in le Grau-du-roi on the beach of Lespiguette. Les Pieds-Nus (bare feet) is sort of your end of the world beach hut, wild with a lot of charm. We had 62 guests, we wanted something small, and the wedding took 16 months to plan.’

How they met We can’t really pretend that it was love at first sight. Without even knowing each other, we even despised each other! At the time I was working in the marketing department of a large bank and Xavier was… well the intern! But since we only worked a couple of desks from one another, we had to get to know each other. As for me, I was already in a relationship and He didn’t want anything serious. However indifference quickly turned into a great bond that soon turned into something more…Then Xavier went to the UK to finish his studies. As for me, I called into question all of my certitudes, and I ended up taking the biggest decision of my life: choosing him. We found each other again after several months, and have been together ever since. We have been building our love story for 12 years now, we move forward together following our work obligations. They took us from Toulon to Montpellier with stops in Grasse and Marseilles. From our love came 2 adorable monsters that are 4 and 8 today, our family, our life.

The Proposal Xavier took advantage of a weekend when my grand mother was taking care of the kids to bring me to a splendid hotel in St Rémi de Provence. That night, before going out to dinner, he gave me back a photo album I had given him 11 years ago. At the time, I had put pictures and texts of our brand new love story and ended it with the phrase “to be continued”. He had taken this photo album and added the remainder of our story which ended with the proposal. It couldn’t have been more perfect. This album was filled with moments of life that symbolized our story and our love for each other.

How did you allocate your budget? For this “late in life” wedding, we wanted to indulge ourselves and our guests. Most of the budget was allocated to the venue and the caterer.

Where did you splurge and where did you save? Big splurge: the venue, our wedding planners and my dress Little savings: my hair and makeup were done by my best friend and after some hesitation we chose not to rent a vehicle

Why did you choose your photographer? It was on the advise of our wedding planner who had selected several photographers. We then contacted Camille MARCIANO who is a young and talented photographer. I had loved one of her inspirational photoshoot. I also liked the idea of working with an artist who wasn’t well known in France yet.

The Dress The dress was made by a designer from Marseilles named Manon Gontero. The shoes were lent by my best friend. As for the civil ceremony, I called upon my mother’s gifted fingers. She managed to design and produce a dress with 3 months of the ceremony without even being able to see me.

The Suit and Bridesmaids Xavier chose a tailor-made suit from SAMSON in Lyon. As for the bridesmaids, I had only defined a theme: hippie chic style with neutral colors (nude, beige, golden…).

Did you have a theme or colour scheme Boho Chic

Flowers On that subject, I let my wedding planner work their magic. They hired their go to florist and It was absolutely beautiful.

Decoration For the ceremony, we had a wooden arch with an accumulation of flowers pots held by macramé lacings, feather dusters and two rattan chair as in Emmanuelle. As for the wedding reception, we also had macramé suspensions, candles along the walls, the seating arrangements was also on a wooden suspension…not to mention all the signs, the candy bar.

Food We enjoyed a generous cocktail by the pool before going to the wedding dinner around 9pm. We shortly tasted guinea fowl before the rain started pouring down on us and force us to withdraw into the dancing area. Nonetheless everyone had a feast!

Wedding Cake A strawberry sponge, very light and delicious, served with a pyramid of macaroons for the foodies.

Entertainment We didn’t have any games planned, only a dancing party.

Stationery Our wedding planners designed all the wedding stationery: save the dates, labels, thank you notes…

Personal Touches No, I have to admit !!! Our wedding planners took care of everything from A to Z, and so according to the talks we had through the planning of the wedding.

Special Moments or Highlights There were so many! Nonetheless the ceremony had to have been the most memorable moment of our wedding. We had many testimonies from our guests, a lot of emotional moments for us and our guests. Not many guests had had the opportunity to experience such a ceremony before, everyone was very emotional.

Advice for Other Couples Treat YOURSELF ! On the d-day, enjoy every moment.

Biggest Surprise During the cocktail on the beach, Xavier’s step mom (who’s from Tahiti) performed 2 traditional Tahitian dances with her daughter. It was such a beautiful surprise! The day after, our biggest surprise would have to be the video our best friends and families made on COSMO.

For more information on Camille’s work go to:

I’m a french wedding photographer who’s based in Paris, but i love traveling all around France and Canada! I used to live in Montréal! My style is photojournalistic, natural and spontaneous! It’s been 6 years now that i do weddings , my fav are those with an outside ceremony at the end of the day with an outside cocktail . I mostly do champêtre and boho wedding.

Comments

Please leave your comment

We reserve the right to remove any comment that we feel is distasteful, rude, hurtful or inappropriate, so please be nice. Remember the weddings featured on this blog are real people and their weddings mean a lot to them. Please be mindful of this and other people's feelings. If youhave a problem with any of the content please contact me directly.